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I am Italian and would like a confirmation about a query I have. Is "Any chance you being home?" grammatically correct in English?

Karen
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  • It depends on what you mean by 'grammatically correct'. In the UK, it would be seen as 'non-standard' and probably marked down for style in many school essays. In conversation, 'Is there any chance you'll be in?' is more idiomatic. In the US, it probably wouldn't cause anybody hearing it any problems. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 24 '15 at 17:03
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    No, it's not "grammatical" - that would be "[Is there] any chance [of] you being home?" or "...[that] you are* home?"* Consider asking any future questions on English Language Learners – FumbleFingers Jan 24 '15 at 17:03
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    @tchrist There are many examples of people dropping the of in this construction on the internet. This is one: '[H]ey buddy any chance you going to come to arizona.' I've not seen a rulebook specifying exactly what omissions are proscribed where. Your statement 'Your statement about the US is just silly' is just silly. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 24 '15 at 17:41
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    @tchrist I am in no way trying to imply that standards are worse in the US, merely different. 'He looked out the window' would be considered unacceptable in formal writing by many in the UK, but I wouldn't thus label the construction ungrammatical. Here is an example of the deletion used by a reasonable speaker: 'I'm very tempted to buy the Revell kit (knowing full well its limitations) with one of Colin's correction sets and make one myself. Seeing yours rather pushes me further in that direction. Colin, any chance you coming out with the four-bladed props for the Halibag? Regards, Jason' – Edwin Ashworth Jan 24 '15 at 20:27
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    @tchrist May I cite John Lawler (below) as a reasonable reference? I did specify that the register was important. I won't demand a retraction of 'Your statement about the US is just silly'; that's more your style. Though I would estimate that 'the linking of can be omitted' is applied even more rarely in the UK. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 24 '15 at 20:44
  • @EdwinAshworth In all of this exchange concerning the preposition of, the real point of difference between American English and what we speak is the at. Whilst Americans are home, we are at home. The only time we are home is when someone needs to explain that we have been out but that we are now home. – WS2 Jan 24 '15 at 22:15
  • @WS2 - You Brits should recall that the US is a rather large and varied country. Americans from New England would, in fact, be more likely to express themselves in the same manner as you. When I'm in New England, 'I'm at home.' –  Jan 25 '15 at 15:07

1 Answers1

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No. "Is there any chance of you being home?" is the grammatically correct form (sometimes people leave out the "is" or "is there", but this is very informal and I wouldn't recommend it until you're more sure of yourself).

"Is there any chance you are home?" is also grammatically correct, and sometimes the "is there" is left out, giving you "Any chance you are home?", which is informal but correct in colloquial usage.

There are also a lot of regional ways of asking the same question, depending on where you are.

Just for the record, the English Language Learners Stack Exchange is probably more suited to this sort of question next time.

Community
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Watercleave
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  • Any chance alone at the beginning of a question is common in Conversational Deletion, and perfectly normal in speech; the Is there is predictable, and therefore can be omitted. Likewise (though not nearly so commonly), the linking of can be omitted, since this is just a basic question -- Question marker plus condition. Any chance is the question marker, you being home? is the condition. Of course, formal writing doesn't work this way, but email and txt does, just like speech. – John Lawler Jan 24 '15 at 18:47